updates #1 URECA, exchange and movies

Am down with a flu. Its absolutely killing me inside. But on the bright side, I've finished up the questionnaires for my research and sent them to my co-supervisor, Ms Shelly for vetting before she goes on leave on the 12th. I'm excited, yet dreading, having to create the other testing materials for this. Its going to so much strenuous work! I'd so love to elaborate on what I'm doing, but who knows I might end up testing the person reading this and he or she will know exactly what I'm doing and provide biased results! But all I can say this I'm actually pretty excited to be doing this because I'm the sole author of the research paper I'm doing because its an external idea that I proposed. I didn't select any of the projects that was listed in the URECA website because they were just downright dull. The ones offered in the Psyche department are just so blah. Autism, Facebook and preschool cognition just didn't get my juices rolling. I must have emailed like 10 different professors from both the Psyche and Socio department with my proposal who all had to turn me down because they were too busy. Finally I went to the Wee Kim Wee Communications School - because my proposal involved the development of popular culture on eating disorders - to see who would be interested and finally got directed to my supervisor, Professor May, who happens to do a lot of work on media and body image. Unfortunately, she wasn't familiar with eating disorders but body image was a suitable substitute for me, so here I am now. I just have to point out that Professor May looks startlingly like Vera Wang. And she dresses pretty well for a professor. Fitted pants and skirts, patterned scarfs and low heels. Neither shabby nor too Gaga.

So yeah, her, along with her research assistant,  are there just to guide me through the process, such as helping me straighten out the research, discuss the feasibility and look over the materials because honestly speaking, doing this along is more daunting what I did in TP because for starters, its at a more serious level. I'm dealing with more variables, designing my own procedure, creating my own questionnaires and stuff like that. Unlike MP where the materials were pretty much there already, I have to literally create from scratch, my own testing materials. Such as the questionnaires. And okay, I did take some from the Net, but there's one that I have to create and another that I'm thinking from ordering online. Its strenuous I can tell you, but I believe that at the end of day, it'll be really rewarding to know that I single handedly created my own independent research project.

I don't really like telling people I'm in URECA, because then they'll start going on with retarded shit like how you're so smart and stuff, because after all, it is true that only selected students get invited for this. But I don't want to pressurize myself with their comments. And grades aren't the be all and end all. Anyone can do research seriously, so I don't know why URECA has a cap GPA. Its ridiculous. But I can use it as a UE, and only as a Pass or Fail option.

So I spoke to my parents, separately, about the possibility of applying for an exchange. My mum didn't look pleased when I started telling her what an exchange entails because she knows that going to the US for an exchange, or anything else for that matter, is my dream. But to give her her due, I'm probably being a little inflexible because I didn't talk of doing it with Asia, and I do know that going to the States or toe Europe will put a strain on our finances. We're not rich okay! My dad just happens to be very organized with money. Which reminds me, after my final paper on the 4th, I met an exchange student from SMU who was asking me what the quickest way out of NTU was. We ended up taking the bus and train to Buona Vista together and I asked him why he had wanted to do a local exchange instead of going overseas, and he mentioned how its actually not financially sound to travel to Europe just for an exchange and pay $10 000. He believes that it should be spent for fun and travel, rather than just going there for an education, and so after the graduates next semester, he'll be backpacking with 2 of his friends to Europe for a few months with the same amount of money.

I think what he said got me thinking. For me, the purpose of an exchange, really is to experience an overseas educational culture. Of course I'd love to play and have fun overseas, but bearing in mind the costly expenses that it will entail, I'd really have to consider whether I'm, or rather, my parents, are willing to fork out at least $10 000 just so I can spend 4 months overseas.

My dad said he's willing to support me in going for an exchange, but he expressed the same sentiments as the SMU student.

Now I'm just questioning my reasons for wanting to go to the States/Europe. Deep down I know its because I just want to get out of Asia. I don't want to go to China, Korea, Japan or Hong Kong. I want to go to a Western country and live and breathe the life. I'm Asian, but not that Asian. Unfortunately (or not), I have not, and probably will never, outgrow this White superiority complex that I have. But just for the record, that does not make an SPG, like what some people might think. Okay its true that I want to have gorgeous babies with blue eyes. But I want to be with someone from the West because they're so much more open minded and liberal. I need someone who can please me. Intellectually. Asian men are too....conservative. Okay not all, but still. 

Plus I love American and British accents.

Geez I was watching Asia's Next Top Model, and this show is highly unentertaining. Its all so dull. I mean, where is the bitchiness? I want to see skinny bitches fighting and tearing each other and calling each other sluts and skunks and cunts and whores and backstabbing each other. All the girls in Asia's Next Top Model are all so dainty and blah. I gave up watching after a while. And for the record, the model from Malaysia and Singapore? Not pretty. They look like professional PRs in their photos instead of models, but the girls from Nepal and Thailand and Japan are pretty stunning. Or maybe its because they have American accents.

SEE THIS IS WHY I NEED/WANT TO GO ON EXCHANGE IN THE US. I AM BIASED AGAINST ASIAN ACCENTS WHICH IS STUPID BECAUSE I MYSELF I HAVE AN ASIAN ACCENT SO WHO AM I KIDDING? Geez woman go slap yourself or something.

Oh, and I finally managed to watch Taken, where Liam Neesan, who voices Aslan, plays a retired CIA agent, and travels to Paris to find his daughter who has been kidnapped by Albanians who traffic women. Best. Fucking. Show. Ever. Seriously guys who have to watch it. And I finally watched The Dark Knight Rises. It was okay. I guess. I think I had preferred Batman Begins, but Christian Bale is still so super hot and sexy and I still want to marry him and have his babies. I'm not sure what to think of the ending, because I honestly didn't like Anne Hathaway's portrayal of Catwoman. And her dialogue was just, off. She speaks the mind of a spunky woman instead of a mysterious sexy cat burglar.

And the new Bond girls? Totally disgusting. Holy Christ okay I know the producers are like we want to bring new fresh faces, but seriously, the new Bond girls that are with the new James Bond so aren't impressionable. COME ON PRODUCERS TOUGHEN THEM UP A BIT. Which leads me to my list of Favorite Female Mutants / Heroines

- Princess Tamina (Gemma Arteton) in The Prince of Persia
- Jean Grey (Famke Jansenn) in X Men
- Jinx (Halle Berry) in Die Another Day
- Selena Kyle (Michelle Pffifer) in Batman Returns
- Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) in X Men
- Anna (Kate Beckinsale) in Van Helsing
- Eowyn (Miranda Otto) in The Two Towers & The Return of the King
- Slim ( Jennifer Lopez) in Enough
- Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) in Pirates of the Caribbean
- Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) in The Mummy & The Mummy Returns
- Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock) in Miss Congeniality
- Penny (Kelly Cuoco) in the Big Bang Theory

Yes. Penny is a heroine. End of story.

Oh and Tom Hardy's character as Bane? I'm sorry but I wasn't impressed by him. He just came off as a huge blocky and clunky characters roaming the streets. Not my favorite Batman villain to date. But I shall give a proper review of the Dark Knight Rises again in my next update!

But I think romance movies are probably the worst on my list. Like, I tried watching 500 Days of Summer. I honestly tried, but it was so boring oh my god I felt like I was wasting my time. I can't believe people actually like that movie. And Dear John. It seemed to involve a lot of moon gazing and tacky romance. Honestly, if a boy wants to impress me with a movie, he needs to bring me to an action movie. Like Speed, Taken, LOTR, Bad Boys, G.I Joe, which reminds me I have got to watch their sequel. I live on the fighting, the car chases, the gun shooting, the ass kicking. Or if he really wants to see a romantic movie, then it has to be a romantic comedy. Like The Proposal, or My Best Friend's Wedding.

I've been rewatching a whole lot of old movies as well. Like X-Men: First Class. I can't say that Jennifer Lawrence did a good job. All she did was just morph into different characters all the time. But hello Michael Fassbender (young Magneto) is dashing and I want to marry him to thank you very much. And the three X-Men movies. I'm so hurt that Cyclops was given less and less screen time with each movie. He's hot! Plus, I've come to realize that in many of Hugh Jackman's movies, he's always having to kill the women he loves, or women who love him. Like how he has to kill Jean Gray, how he almost killed Rogue, and how he killed Anna in Van Helsing. And after he kills them and the women faint, he catches them while he is standing there so it look like they're doing a highly elevated dip in a ballroom dance, with her head hanging limp and loose and he with his anguished face and muscular arms. Its deranged and funny at the same time.

I'd think I'd make a good film critic.

More updates soon.

Am off to watch Batman Begins again!